Hello all. I just bought my first 4-piece rod. It is a Winston Vapor (4 wt, 8 ft.) and retails for $300. I bought it new and it seems to cast pretty well, at least much better than my other, cheaper rod; however, I am a bit concerned because one of the 4 pieces has a very slight bow. It is the second thickest piece and it causes the tip to deviate a few degrees from the plane looking down the spine of the rod. I was wondering if graphite 4-piece rods often line up perfectly or not. I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I asked two other people to examine it. They both said that they could see the slight mis-alignment but thought it was very minimal; however, I am concerned that this slight offset might increase line friction and affect the overall performance of the rod. Thus far it seems to be loading nicely and is fairly easy to cast. Since my other rod only cost about $75, I'm not sure how to judge if the off-set is hindering the performance of the rod. Unfortunately, I bought the rod on sale and am not able to return it. Its only 3 days old and I'm not sure if I should pay the $60+ dollars to send it to Winston and get a new section. Any advice or comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

I understand what you are saying but I'm not sure I understand the part about buying it on sale?

Just because you bought something on sale doesn't mean you lose warranty protection on a new piece of equipment. I'd send a polite letter or e-mail to Winston to see what they have to say on the matter if you can't get any satisfaction from the place you bought the rod.

If you bought the rod second hand, or it was sold expressly with no warranty then you might be out of luck but I'd still let Winston know.

You deserve to have a flawless flyrod. Winston is a "top on the line" manufacturer. I dont care if it was $300 or $600, I would call them and ask how they plan to remedy the situation. Please let me know what Winston says if you talk with them. Good luck and sorry for the hassle.

Most graphite rod manufacturers don't "spline" the rod to find out how these sections line up. If Winston doesn't take the rod back, (or if it does and you get one back that is worse) I wouldn't worry about it.

How are you sure the rod is not properly splined. Having built a couple rods, I'd say that guessing by how the rod looks is not accurate.

If you didn't buy a "factory second", you should definitely send it back if you can see that one of the sections is curved. I would expect that they would give you a new section or rod since it was defective from they factory. I would start by taking it back to shop that you bought it at and then CALL (not email, not send it back with a note) winston and see what they will do.